can a maxed out iMac i7 (2012) handle a 4K Premiere Pro CS6 workflow???

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Nicholas Natteau

Veteran
Following up on a previous thread I started about RAM and Premiere Pro CS6 on a mac platform, I'm very interested to know if the latest iMac i7, maxed out with 32 GB of RAM and an internal 750GB flash drive can handle a 4K work flow in Premiere Pro CS6?

My next project will involve shooting 4K with the Canon EOS 1DC and editing 4K, and as my present computer is over 4 years old, I know I definitely have to upgrade my editing station for this type of workflow.

Will the iMac i7 maxed out be more than enough? Or would it be wiser to wait for Apple's rumored upcoming new generation of Mac Pro desktops? (If and when they arrive hopefully later this year).

Thank you in advance for your feedback.
 
Something to consider.... Not every bodies workflow is the same. Cutting a film in 4K doing simple A/B cuts/dissolves is completely different than cutting 30 second commercials with 30 layers even at 1/4 resolution.

I will add though that my new decked out 27" iMac is pretty fast with the Thunderbolt raid.
 
I can Work with 5k epic footage in premier on my MBP retina i7 2.6 at 1/4 - works off usb 3.0 or thunderbolt drive.
 
How fast does it take to render on average? Let's be honest here, I was able to easily edit Red 4k footage on a Sony VAIO laptop back in 2010, but it took about 6-7 hours to render this out. I'm sure speeds should be faster, but these days almost anything can stitch two clips together, and like David said, it's very different than a heavily layered 30 second commercial.

To put it in perspective, a friend of mine did the post on an Epic commercial, three 30 second spots, in Final Cut Pro 7. Just to get the proxies ready for him to edit took a solid 3 days of rendering on a MacBook Pro out of RedCineX.
 
Yea with RED it's the final renders that'll kill you (or the initial ones). Editing the footage is becoming easier and easier...but hit that render button and ooooooo boy.
 
KyleProhaska said:
Yea with RED it's the final renders that'll kill you (or the initial ones). Editing the footage is becoming easier and easier...but hit that render button and ooooooo boy.
Click to expand...

Yeah, my experience to a "t". I put together an entire assembly edit of that film (including rough sound effects and music just to help scenes that didn't work well with out it), and I tried to render them a low resolution video file that they could watch the movie from beginning to end.

But I didn't have three and a half days of downtime for my laptop to render out the 113 minute film.
 
all true. While one can edit RED on most of todays computers, it's the RED Rocket card that makes the workflow go smoothly. There are thunderbolt chassis now that can pack the red rocket card so that is good.

Macs can do it, but if your primary workflow is RED material there are other options but they are expensive options.
 
Thanks everybody. Actually in my case though shooting on the Canon EOS 1DC means that I wouldn't be working with RAW files, but with Motion Jpeg. So would a maxed out iMac i7 be powerful enough to work with 4K Motion Jpeg in PP CS6 or would it be wiser to get a mac pro desktop for anything 4K included compressed footage???
 
Go check out Philip Blooms recent posts for shots from the 1DC in it's in-camera format...add some filters and stuff and see how it works for you.
 
Nicholas, I'd suggest downloading a couple of .r3d files from somewhere, converting them to motion jpeg and then running some tests with them - should show you how your computer will handle 1DC footage.
 
In my experience NO! Actually it sort of works if you don't mind a horrible experience. The only way I ever got it to work was with a Sonnet Thunderbolt chasis and a Red Rocket.
 
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Right now I'm editing an hour long university style lecture shot in 4K from the Red.

I have a Sandy Bridge I7 2600k, 16gb ram and a Geforce 570.

There's several text layers on the side w/ a basic brown semi transparent matte. I also have a few basic color correction effects on. The hour long lecture takes about 2.5 to 3 hours to render out to 1080p.

Plays smoothly with everything at 1/8th quality. Mostly smooth at 1/4th with hiccups sometimes.

You should be fine.
 
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